Publications

Blog about the report launch, by Dr Montserrat Pareja Eastaway Wednesday 24th May. Coin Street Conference centre. Amidst a festive environment, the report ‘Co-operate not speculate’, by the Co-operative Housing Group, was presented on the 24th May at Coin Street Neighbourhood centre. It was festive because those people attending the presentation were celebrating the validity of coops as a housing alternative for Londoners. As it became clear from the start, either people… Read More

Substantive questions from Build to Rent consultation LSE London responses Kath Scanlon & Christine Whitehead, 28 April 2017 Do you consider there are market and regulatory failures impeding the rapid development of the Build to Rent market that merit national policy intervention? Please add comments. Build to Rent schemes provide positive externalities in the form of faster development and placemaking which are not reflected in market prices. There is also regulatory failure… Read More

Fixing our broken housing market 2 May 2017 Members of the LSE London research group, together with academic and research colleagues from elsewhere, met on 26th April to discuss our response to the consultation around the Housing White Paper. Those endorsing this response are listed at the end of the document. Here we present an overview, plus responses to some specific questions. Overview Our overall response to the White Paper was one… Read More

Christine Whitehead was one of the experts that provided advice and guidance on the report, ‘Strength in Numbers: Funding and Building More Affordable Housing in London‘, by Silviya Barrett and Tom Dilke. The report examines what the authors perceive to be two of the main barriers preventing local authorities from building, namely: the cost of land and the availability of funding. The report brings to light the benefits of cross-borough collaboration on… Read More

In February 2017, the Department of Communities and Local Government (CLG) Committee launched an inquiry into whether the housing on offer in England for older people is sufficiently available and suitable for their needs. This inquiry was launched in lieu of a significant housing shortage, a rise in elderly population, pressures on adult social care, and, as mentioned in the announcement, with ‘just 2% of the country’s housing stock designed with pensioners… Read More

At the behest of the Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, the London Finance Commission reconvened once more to produce an evidence based report on the possibilities of devolution with specific focus on tax and spending arrangements in the capital. This report, titled Devolution: a capital idea, is especially important seeing as the political landscape will continue to be altered after the June 2016 EU referendum vote. The process of devolution has been… Read More

We understand that the UK needs to increase housing supply from around 200,000 net additions to 300,000 homes per year to identify housing needs of 1.5m homes in the next five years (see our previous report with the Town & Country Planning Association). We have identified Build to Rent (BTR) as a model that can help address and meet these goals (see our previous report with Future of London). The task before… Read More

Immigration is one of today’s most conflictual issues. There is disagreement about how immigration affects economies and about how national policy can improve growth and support social cohesion and welfare. Stakeholders include not only policy makers and migrants themselves but indeed almost all of society. London has a particular stake in the debate—it is the UK destination of choice for migrants from all parts of the income and education spectra, many of… Read More

London has a chronic housing problem. The private and public sector seem to be experimenting with Build to Rent model as one of the many ways to tackle this problem. In this report, Future of London and LSE London set forth definitions, motivations, contemporary context, challenges, reasons for the public sector to promote the model, and recommendations for the various stake holders. The report acknowledges two leading definitions from the Greater London… Read More

Kath Scanlon and Christine Whitehead have conducted the largest ever survey of UK landlords in a report commissioned by the Council of Mortgage Lenders. In their report, they find significant findings on landlords’ profile, motivations, and plans. The report outlines how many landlords have mortgages, how many properties they own, how old they are, typical profile, and overall plans. About 2500 landlords were surveyed, of which 49% respondents reported owning their property… Read More